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Holly Hunter Finds Her ‘Saving Grace’

[IMG:L]When Holly Hunter read the script for her new TNT drama Saving Grace, she knew she wanted the leading role. Making the jump from a successful film career (she earned an Oscar for her performance in The Piano) to cable television sounds like a leap of faith, but the actress proceeded with little hesitation.

“As soon as I read the script, I went, ‘Wow, I’ve got to do this,’” she admits. “I was like, ‘Wow, how come this can’t be a movie?’ Because that’s what I’ve done so I couldn’t imagine it, the leap of not knowing what would happen next but signing on anyway…because I liked the script so intensely that I didn’t want anyone else to do it!”

Hunter portrays Grace, a cop who bottoms out when she hits a pedestrian while driving drunk. Praying to God for help, she recieves an angel (Leon Rippy) who gives her a last chance. But solving her cases week after week seems easy compared to dealing with her own personal crises of faith.

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Hollywood.com caught up with the actress to find out more about her new show, which premieres July 23 on TNT.

Hollywood.com: Do you believe in angels?
Holly Hunter:
No, but it doesn’t matter because my whole career is about fiction. Fiction is what I love so that’s what I do.

HW: Did you need to research cops to play one?
HH:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I spent some time with O.C.P.D. (Orange County Police Department). They were so generous with their experience and their expertise, in sharing their stories with me, and their procedure.

HW: Is it tough to be tough?
HH:
Well, Grace is kind of everything. She’s incredibly fragile, incredibly vulnerable, incredibly tough. She’s 6 years old, she’s 65, she’s 37, she’s 22. It’s a character that offers me the opportunity to explore a bunch of different qualities.

HW: How much of this character is on the page, and how much do you bring to her?
HH:
The drama is so inherent in the words that when I read it in black and white, I thought, wow, this emotionality of this woman is so wide ranging. I really did think it looked like a full course meal on the page.

HW: Does she resemble you in any way?
HH:
Every character I’ve ever done resembles me. They all come through me. I’m not exactly sure I could be that specific but every single character, just different aspects of either me or my imagination or my experience or people that I’ve seen that I want to bring into this character.

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[IMG:R]HW: Why did you decide to do TV at this point in your career?
HH:
The thing that drew me to the character is she’s a whole person. She’s flesh and blood and she’s a goddess. She’s all of the opposites. She’s an extremist. It’s a very, very intriguing woman. The fact that she’s a drinker, it was a great opportunity to explore the romantic elements of drinking. We do think that drinking is very romantic. As a culture, it’s always portrayed that way for decades in film and it’s also an opportunity to show the vulgarity of someone and how ugly someone can be. And that’s flesh and blood. It’s a part of our lives. It’s a part of our social lives and our private lives, having exposure to alcohol. So there are many topics that drew me, many, many aspects of her, just the fact that they were all expressed is the reason why I’m here.

HW: Do you get this kind of role in films?
HH:
 With this cast, we’ve done 10 hours of Grace and we’re going to do 13 at the end of this season. It’s eight hours more than anything else than I’ve done in my life! It invites an intimacy and a knowledge of one another and that’s been an honor for me because I’ve always wanted to work with the same cast. I’ve always wanted to work with the same actors and directors and everyone that casts the same actors because they want to author a chemistry. So this has been the privilege. It’s kind of like a repertory theater company but you’re doing a different play every week. So could I see this in film? No, beause film doesn’t have this kind of character development opportunity and it doesn’t give me the opportunity to live this life with these people week after week, month after month.

HW: Has that line between film actors and TV actors disappeared now?
HH:
That was beginning to go in 1987 when I went from Broadcast News to Roe Vs, Wade. I went from doing a Jim Brooks movie to doing a TV movie of the week. I think that’s been gone for quite a while.

[IMG:L]HW: Is TV embracing women over 40 in leading roles more than in film?
HH:
Well, Glenn Close and Kyra Sedgwick, Mary-Louise Parker, and the women on Sex and the City and I got together about seven years ago. Yeah. It’s undeniable that something is going on in the zeitgeist. It’s true that this thing is happening. Often people go, “Okay, we’re on the threshold of a big change in cinema or something” and it never really holds true. It’s always just a trend and hopefully that’s not the case here. I actually believe that it’s probably because of cable. It probably really and truly is that cable has kind of changed the landscape, semi-permanently at least, because it’s a moneymaker and it happens to be alternative. It happens to be made for less money and so risks can be greater because less cash is at risk. It’s not in competition with network. So every single thing about it adds up to the people who were wanting to take some chances are given the opportunity. In a way, it does kind of start with The Shield. In my sparse knowledge of television, it really does seem to be that that happened and a door has been opened. In the ‘70s, antiheroes were all over the place in cinema and now it seems that it’s happening on television with women. It’s interesting.

HW: How has the schedule of ongoing TV changed your life?
HH:
It’s kind of like doing an independent movie that never ends.

HW: So in the premiere when you’re naked, was that a long nude scene?
HH:
This is television, remember? In a feature film I would have been naked for 72 hours. This one, three hours. You move quickly.

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HW: Does working so fast give you spontaneity?
HH:
Absolutely. You feel the wind blowing in your hair on this schedule.

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